The line between charming and annoying is pretty fine here, and although Ed is indeed a cute show, I finished two episodes feeling more annoyed than charmed. Much of this zaniness seems as forced as the romance between Ed and Carol, which needs more time to develop. Maybe she'll grow to love him. Maybe you and I will, too. [8 Oct 2000, p.F6]

In no way does NYPD Blue even approach the brilliance of Barry Levinson's police drama, "Homicide," which aired briefly last spring and still could return. So if you exercise your right to change the channel when it comes on, you won't be missing greatness. [19 Sept 1993, p.7F]

Every performance is strong, and the writing is solid. Unfortunately, "Soul Food" has succumbed to premium-cable syndrome, including extremely graphic sex scenes that will put off many viewers who might otherwise have enjoyed it. [28 Jun 2000]

Szymanski, who directed from a script by Murray Miller, gets the look of the documentary, including some real footage mixed with new scenes made to look vintage, just right. The tone, though, is so broad, we never for a second forget the “mocku” in the “mentary.”

Not only does all this style interfere with and distract from the show's content, but the strain to be unconventional leads viewers to expect the unexpected, robbing it of dramatic impact. And that's too bad, because there does seem to be something interesting going on here. [10 Jun 1992]

Queer as Folk tries hard to expand the portrayal of gays on television beyond stereotypes. Unfortunately, the shock factor is so high that few viewers whose minds might be opened seem likely to stick around for the learning experience. [3 Dec 2000, p.C2]

Fox originally provided a different pilot for Rake, one that wasn't so lighthearted. (Really.) That episode will air later, after, the network hopes, we've come to love this bad boy despite his foibles.

Long on scenery and even longer on schmaltz. The kids are fine; Gregory Smith is the show's strongest link as complicated, 15-year-old Ephram, and Vivian Cardone ("A Beautiful Mind") is off-the-scale adorable as 9-year-old Delia. But Williams' conversion to small-town doctor seems forced, and so do the quirks of Everwood residents. It's nothing that a prescription for better writing couldn't fix, however. [16 Sept 2002, p.D6]

The acting is pretty much non-existent, casting is weak, and the special effects are unimpressive. But there's some terrific makeup work on some of the non-human creatures around, and somebody went to the trouble of deciding that a space station for many different species would have to be equipped with many different environments to accommodate them...Nice touch. [22 Feb 1993, p.5D]

In short, tight, low-cut everything, with her talents always on prominent display, Cox appears so much older than the baby-faced Von Esmarch that their relationship looks perverted, if not illegal. [8 Oct 2000, p.F6]

The Firm is tedious but not terrible; whether it will be watchable depends, one, on how much you like legal procedurals and, two, how the ongoing McDeeres-in-jeopardy plot is handled in future episodes.

Adrien Brody is impressive as Houdini in the History Channel's two-night biography, and many of his stunts are re-created (and explained) in fascinating detail. But the miniseries, a co-production with Hungary, Houdini's home country, is too slow and too-often hokey to rate a rave.

It's still hard to expect much out of a sitcom arriving on broadcast TV in summer. In the case of NBC's Undateable, that's a good attitude. If you get a few laughs out of it, great. Otherwise, no hopes will be dashed.

In the first two episodes, a lot of the gags are just stupid: a stuffy man gets a cake in the face; Mary gets caught in a medieval chastity belt...But Taylor makes Mary easy to like, and John Cameron Mitchell provides nice counterpoint as her pal Derrick, who works in fashion photography and has an ironic comment on everything. [9 Sept 1996, p.6D]

I don’t dislike the show Reckless could be, and Gigandet and Wood are cute together ... But the pivotal case, in which many officers may have drugged and raped a colleague, demands to be taken seriously ... Switching back and forth to lighthearted flirtation feels terribly wrong.

I suspect that viewers who know the Bible well will be annoyed by "The Bible," while those who are casual students will be alternately mildly entertained and fairly bored. People with no religious beliefs probably won't watch anyway, but if they do, they could wind up confused or amused.

Enjoying Timecop either requires putting your mind entirely into neutral or simply deciding to suspend a lot of disbelief. I couldn't suspend enough, so I wound up worrying about little things like why the folks of Victorian London, which he visits in tonight's opener, don't think Logan's spiky 1997 haircut is one bit peculiar. [22 Sept 1997]